MARKET PREVIEW: Stocks looking up

Earnings news may distract techs from the weakening dollar Monday, but interest rate issues could resurface. Asia slipped, Europe gained, and the Dow is set to open higher.

U.S.

The dollar slipped 0.19 Japanese yen to 104.86 in the currency markets overnight, despite news that world financial leaders restated the importance of firming the dollar at an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington.

As economic news slows Monday, investors will focus on Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's speech on "Lessons from the Global Crises" at the International Monetary Fund meeting. Those with investments in Latin America also will be assessing news that Ecuador will default on payments of U.S.-backed debt.

In other news, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) plan to unveil a multi-billion dollar extension of their $16 billion pact first announced in March. IBM stock gained 3 to 125 Friday, while Dell added 11/16 to 43-11/16.

Expect the following technology stocks to be among Monday's most actively traded issues: Cisco Systems, eToys, Microsoft and Oracle.

Leading Internet stocks managed to carve out some nice gains Friday but it wasn't enough to offset losses from the chip and chip-equipment sector. The Nasdaq lost 9 points to end at 2,740.41 while the Dow fell 39 points to close at 10,279.33.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may open about 63 points higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was up 8 points to 1297 at 7:23 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 8 to 314.26.

Asia

Trading in Asia was on a downswing. The Nikkei 225 fell 0.30 percent to 16,861, Singapore's Strait Times index lost 1.42 percent to 1,990 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 2.08 percent to 12,760.

Europe

European markets were moving up. London's FTSE 100 rose 1.27 percent to 6,013. The CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.55 percent to 4,566 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.51 percent to 5,202 at 7:10 a.m. EST.